Dynamics of an Asteroid
by AstraGalactic
Summary: "'Once a Moriarty, always a Moriarty'… my father told me that once, and I let it be the truth" – But is it that simple? Why then does she find that she envies the Detective for his one great weakness?... And what does Holmes see in her? Set during AGOS, the Great Hiatus and beyond. Psychological Thriller/Drama. Warning: Very dark; mentions of torture, suicide, and PTSD.
1. Chapter 1

A/N:

1: **To all those wonderful people who already know me and are awaiting updates on my (admittedly numerous) other fics, please** **read the updated info in my profile.**

2: The choice of title will make sense eventually...

3: Thanks to LadyGrimR for encouraging me to publish this.

That said, I have only given her a very very sketchy description, so if this is an abject failure, the fault is mine and mine alone.

4: While I'm an enormous fan of both the Holmes movies (obviously) AND the cannon, any attempts to emulate proper old British english on my part have been abject failures, so while I have made every effort to be culturally informed and to keep the dialogue from being too modern or American, I'm not Sir ACD (clearly).

5) Italics are unspoken thoughts (in this fic)

6) As I'll probably forget later, I own nothing!

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Alexandra Moriarty does not mourn when she receives the succinct telegram informing her that her father had perished of natural causes en route to his recently-acquired factory in Heilbronn, Germany. Instead she proceeds with preparing for her own journey to what had been Meinhart's factory before her father had disposed of him, choosing to continue with his plans as the rightful heir to his empire which she is, rather than remaining in England to await his funeral service…. After all this is business as usual.

It is perhaps ironic, as much as she will permit herself to feel the emotion, that while on the train, Alexandra passes a small chapel where another funeral is taking place. She observes the obvious grief of the bereaved family members but only in a detached way, free from even the vestiges of any reciprocal or shared emotion. Her father's demise brings her no grief – no regret of feelings of desolation - and while that would have been unacceptable in any other family, this is how her father had always wanted her – without the weakness and fragility of human emotion - and amoral as he was, ever critical of her as he'd been in his life and especially for the first half of hers, even he would not have the nerve to complain in the end for her having become exactly what he had worked so hard for so long to make her.

No, were he capable of it now, James Moriarty would have likely been pleased.

His second-in command, Sebastian Moran is another matter entirely. Wryly she wonders if the army reject will attempt to shoot her on sight when she arrives, before dismissing the idea entirely, knowing that though he's always been her greatest rival and in many ways her father's favorite, he will remain willing to work with her so long as he sees in her enough of her father to respect her leadership and command.

It is perhaps amusing to see the disbelief on the faces of the German officers when they meet their new employer, likely equal parts surprise that said employer is a woman, and surprise that she prefers to wear male dress for the greater mobility it affords her (though she doubts the majority of them have pieced together the reason, judging from their poorly concealed shock).

Of course, none of them ask any questions, one way or the other. They have likely learned from being in her father's employ that doing so is a sure way to end up dead…. sooner than later.

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	2. Chapter 2

A/N:

1) As I'll probably forget later, I own nothing!

2) ... I invented Alexandra, and I really really hate her here.

3) Italics are unspoken thoughts (in this fic)

4) Note, I'm **not** analyzing what's going through her creepy father's head in the original scene, and Alexandra is **not** her father. Her driving reasons differ from his even though the result is nasty no matter what.

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From being well informed of her father's plans, Alexandra knows about the consulting detective who had been on his scent. Based on the reports of those who have had him under observation she sees him as a most singular character, yet when the false twins come to her dragging the very same man unconscious between them, she still manages to be surprised at the nerve the detective had to break in to her father's factory in the first place.

Like her father would have, of course she had prepared well for such an eventuality. Perhaps unlike him, though she'll never know, she had not expected it to actually happen.

Did the detective really think that with so much manpower, he would have any chance at all of getting in and out undetected? Or was he under some kind of illusion that he would be afforded any mercy if caught? In either case, he has made a mistake he will pay for dearly.

She watches coolly as her father's subordinates – her subordinates now, actually – awaken the detective from the protective cocoon of unconsciousness, curious to see his reaction to her presence, wondering if perchance his impunity in breaking in was the effect of him being informed that she had stepped up to take her father's place and thinking her an easier adversary to defeat? If so, that alone was a grievous mistake on his part.

Having witnessed this kind of scenario often in the past – enough times that she has become accustomed to her father's techniques for extracting information from practically anyone – Alexandra knows that she should keep her back turned, that an air of casual indifference is an important component towards cultivating her victim's shock and horror later in this game, but curiosity wins over experience this once, and wanting to know if he had been informed of her succession or not, she watches as his eyes open and settle upon her.

If the detective is surprised at all, there is not trace of it on his features, but she can see that he is thinking, drawing conclusions from minute details as he is famous for, and knows that he is aware by this moment, even though he likely had not been before, of her identity and present rank in this secret empire.

The detective's tone is entirely formal, as if they are meeting at some social function, not as prisoner and captor:

"Miss Alexandra Moriarty, I presume. Only child of Professor Moriarty, and heir to his empire. You are aware of the manner in which it has been built."

Alexandra sees no reason to reply to the last statement when clearly the detective was not asking a question anyway, though a small part of her wants to ask if he has observed her lack of mourning for her father – if he understands why. Instead she only smiles icily and replies:

"Very good thus far, so let me spare you from making a truly…. unfortunate …. mistake by informing you that my father's demise changes nothing. I am fully prepared to act in his stead."

She cannot tell if the detective is being cynical or not when he says simply, calmly:

"How regrettable that you choose this of all that you could do with your talents."

At those words Alexandra turns away from him, quickly. Once… when she was young, naïve, weak…. she had wanted to believe that she could become something else, that she was capable of something other than following in her father's footsteps. But that time is long gone, and she knows now that denying her nature had been a foolish mistake…. a childish illusion that is well to be gone…. nothing more.

What she imagines the detective must have said in hopes of garnering some protection for himself, does nothing but fill her with icy rage, as she wonders if he would have said as much had she been the son her father had always wanted, or if perhaps she looked like a Moriarty rather than having inherited almost entirely her mother's appearance.

She watches him though her peripheral vision in the mirror's reflection, and asks the obvious question, not because she is particularly concerned about the answer, but because it is what her father would have done – it provides an excuse for breaking the detective:

"A telegram was sent from here. Who was it sent to?"

Unsurprisingly he does not answer, though that he has the nerve to speak on another matter … again manages to take her aback:

"My horror at your father's crimes is matched only by my admiration at the skill it took to achieve them."

Rather than replying, she repeats in the same icy tone, even knowing that she will get no answer, but finding that fact quite convenient for her purposes:

"Who was it sent to?"

The cold fury within her does not change anything, though she imagines it will make his suffering that much more satisfying, and the condemnation in the detective's tone as he accurately lays out her father's plans – her plans now – only serves to anger her further, mostly because for some inexplicable reason, it **bothers** her at some level:

"He used the anarchists and their bombs to create a crisis in Europe, pit nation against nation. Under various pseudonyms he bought, schemed or murdered his way into numerous industries assuring that none of it could be traced to him: cotton, opium, steel…. now arms and chemical weaponry, all to be shipped across Europe in less than a week, everything from bullets to bandages….. Now that you own the supply, you intend to create the demand: a world war."

Alexandra ignores the barely existent feeling of uneasiness, and says casually as she gives the arranged signal to the two soldiers in the room:

"You are familiar with Schubert's work…. _A Trout_ is perhaps my favorite….."

It is not true in the least – _Die Forelle_ had always been too bloody cheerful for her tastes – though the truth of her statement is irrelevant. She knows her father had chosen this particular piece for the occasion, and uses the metaphor exactly as he would have, aiming to break Holmes's will along with his body:

"A fisherman grows weary of trying to catch an elusive fish, so he muddies the water… confuses the fish. It does not realize until too late that it has swam into a trap."

In the reflection of the mirror she can see perfectly as the calm confidence that had filled the detective's expression are instantly replaced by the shattered visage of a man suddenly overwhelmed by shock, agony, and horror, as the hook's point is swiftly plunged into his shoulder.

For some reason the detective's (impressively well suppressed) cries of pain and sheer horror which he chokes off into strangled gasps and eventually just agonized harsh breaths….. do not bring her the satisfaction she knew her father would have felt – the satisfaction she expected to feel, instead they seem to settle in the pit of her stomach like an icy knot, while she cannot help but see a vague accusation lurking in the dark eyes that stare at her from her own reflection.

_It has to be nerves_.

Apparently though she has been witness to this type of occurrence many times before and was entirely immune to any emotional effect, being the one in charge this time is a different matter entirely, even if it is easy enough to remedy.

After all, she knows what her father's next step would be – _Die Forelle -_ and accounting for the fact that based on the repeated gunfire, Moran had missed the doctor who was likely at the moment pinned down behind some form of cover, she decides that Holmes can be both the trout and the bait.

Alexandra sets up the gramophone, and activates the loudspeaker mounted outside the building, ensuring that the doctor is going to hear this, though it is strange that the detective has become oddly quiet as he slowly swings back and forth, clearly focused only on slowing his movement while keeping the least weight possible on the hook lodged in his right shoulder. She had expected that he would be broken by now, foolishly – hysterically – screaming and begging for mercy just like the others had, though his greater endurance is no matter, as it is only a matter of time until he is too weak to hold up even the smallest fraction of his weight, and the hook rips further into his flesh.

Her father would have sung along, putting his gleeful enjoyment on display for everyone to be aware of, most importantly his trout – but she remains silent, though like her father, she knows the lyrics and speaks fluent German.

Perhaps it is the German climate which has adversely affected her health - though she had been comfortable enough when arriving here – for in this moment she feels as if she is choking on the air itself, and knows that the purpose of the gleeful song with which she should accompany the event will be lost were her voice to falter.

She knows that Holmes's grip on the hook is slipping – probably to a large extent due to his own blood slicking the metal– when she hears him utter a barely audible gasp of pain. It sounds more like a sob than anything else she has ever heard.

That wordless quiet utterance carries within it an impressive amount of raw anguish – physical as well as mental and emotional - and a strange painful tightness seems to spread in her chest ….. until it is effaced by blinding white-hot rage and sheer unfathomable hatred.

What right does this accursed detective have to make her feel so unacceptably unsure?... So pathetically weak and pitifully…. human?

How dare he – the doomed trout skewered at the end of her fishing line – by his presence alone presume to make her feel like she is the one who is being broken?

Alexandra reaches for the pistol tucked into the small of her back, wanting nothing more than to put a round through his head, before dismissing the idea. It would be too quick, too painless…. and therefore unacceptable.

No, she will first break him utterly in every way, carve into his flesh his own inescapable doom and utter helplessness, and then kill him… slowly – and she will treasure every second of it.

She pulls at the detective with all her not-inconsiderable strength, savoring his anguished screams and the feeling of his body convulsing from the excruciating agony, and laughs as she hears Moran shooting more frequently, proving that outside these walls the detective's partner is writhing as he endures a mental torment of his own.

Smiling manically, she wrenches Holmes's right arm about, forcing the ligaments and muscles in his shoulder to scrape and rip against the unforgiving sharp iron…. forcing his entire body to pivot on the point of the hook ripping through his flesh as it twists within him and all his impressive control cannot stop him from throwing his head back as his body goes rigid from the unbearable pain and another full-throated agonized scream is ripped from him ….. and knows that she has broken him when he lets his destroyed arm fall limply to his side, no longer possessing the strength or the will to try to hold on with his other hand which now rests uselessly against his mouth, doing nothing to silence the sobs of sheer desperation and horror that well up from within his trembling form.

Alexandra gives the signal for one of her guards to let go of the rope, letting the shattered detective come crashing to the unforgiving cold stone floor, and stands above him, reveling in the fact that now he lays broken and helpless at her feet.

Holding the other end of the rope as a reminder of what lays in store for him should he not answer, she says in a tone that holds within it a clear promise of further torment:

"Let's try this again, shall we? To whom did you send the telegram?"

Perhaps she pushed too far and caused too much damage, because the broken man before her seems about to slip into unconsciousness, so she crouches over him, dragging him back into a world of pain that she controls by wrenching on the hook buried deep inside his shoulder while she holds down his left wrist with her other hand – for the sole purpose of emphasizing to him his utter helplessness against her, because she knows his right arm is too badly damaged to be moved, and he is too weak at this point to move his left in any case - and this time she gets the answer to her question.

This close she can fully appreciate her triumph over him…. see in perfect detail how his usually sharp gaze is dulled with exhaustion and overwhelming pain….. see how his hair that was dry just moments earlier is, like his skin, entirely soaked in sweat….. hear his ragged shallow breathing that seems in itself to be far too much effort for what is left of this shattered man, and feel every uncontrollable tremor of sheer agony that rips through him.

She smiles coldly, reveling in his utter destruction at her hands….. and yet is seems as if the contact with Holmes, though which she can feel every quiver of his trembling body, saps her strength, because suddenly she feels more weary than triumphant.

It is yet another reaction upon her own part which is unacceptable, though it becomes fractionally less so when she inwardly assures herself that this overwhelming feeling of weariness is a natural physical aftermath of far too much excitement…. and leaves it at that.

In either case, she finds herself pulling away just as her father would have - except it is not enough, because in some hidden corner of her treacherous mind she suspects that unlike him, at some level she is in retreat – and again she lashes out in spite and hate, asking a question she knows her father would have cherished, even though for entirely different reasons:

"I've just got one more question for you: Which of us is the fisherman and which the trout?"

Alexandra smiles coldly, she wants to hear the answer from his lips before she kills him. She wants to remind him that trout get gutted after they are hooked, and laugh as she slices him open.

She wants to watch the last vestiges of light and life in his eyes flicker out as he drowns in his own blood.

She wants that satisfaction to fill the bottomless void within her ….. but she never gets it because there is a deafening crash akin to the firing of a cannon – a bloody cannon of all things – and then she has no more time to think as she sees the tower falling and dives for cover.

When she comes to, she is alone, unsurprisingly. Moran did not come for her as he would have her father, but as she digs herself out through the rubble, pulling her hand away in shock as she feels sticky warm wetness on her fingertips and looks down only to find the bloody hook lying discarded in the ruins, she reflects that Moran's lack of interest in her personal well-being is for the best, because suddenly bile rises in her throat. She does not have the energy or desire to go further – and knows that Moran is the last person who should ever see her in such a state of pitiable weakness.

Furious once again, Alexandra stands and storms out of the collapsed building, mentally cursing that detective to bloody hell for making her so weak, and Moran for missing in the first place, thereby allowing a cannonball to steal her victory.

The latter she plans to have words with soon, and as for the former, in the unlikely scenario that he survives to see her another day….. this time she will be ready for him…. this time she will not let him find any chinks in her armor for she will close them forever before their next battle….. and if perchance he somehow manages to still make her …. uneasy, she **will** kill him.

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	3. Chapter 3

A/N:

1) As I'll probably forget later, I own nothing!

2) She's arguably even worse here...

3) Italics are unspoken thoughts (in this fic)

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When her father's invitation to the peace-summit at Reichenbach had been passed on to her, Alexandra had been prepared to deliver the same platitudes about the necessity of peace that her father would have – the ultimate irony considering his actual involvement with these affairs, and an excellent cover – but within the first words exchanged with the Prime Minister who leads her into the ballroom, she realizes that neither he nor anyone else present is interested in what she has to say.

She's simply arm-candy, like all the other women here… or at least eye-candy, since she rejects all the offers made to her by several of those present to dance.

Ignominious as it is that she had to dress as an ornament to attend in this highly useless and elaborate full ball-gown appropriate to her class, and enough jewels to sink a small freighter – though at least her gowns are custom tailored to allow her for an unimpaired range of movement while serving well to hide two machine pistols and a pair of knives, two measly positives that do little to quell her dissatisfaction – even worse is the number of people that blithely approach her as if she is indeed a harmless…. powerless… decoration, just because of her gender.

It is something she should be accustomed to by now, but despite that, the idea grates, and for that reason, when one of the attendants approaches her to give her a note – which turns out to be from none other than Holmes, who apparently somehow managed to survive, and awaits her on the balcony – she finds the fact oddly relieving.

He might be the largest thorn in her side ever, but at least, he recognizes her intellect.

Stepping outside into the bitterly cold night air, she sees the detective making use of his time out of the public eye to tend to his wound – which by all rights should have killed him, or at least incapacitated him – and somewhat annoyed by how functional he appears despite that, she asks a question only he will understand the true import of:

"I'm sorry, is this a bad time?"

If she has managed to unnerve the detective at all, he does not let it show, and instead replies calmly:

"Never better…. Would you bring that clock."

She almost laughs at his response – at the honesty in it, despite how much subtext is being exchanged. She doubts there **is** a good time to meet with her, especially now…. and still the detective presses on, challenging her to finish the game her father had once challenged him to.

Picking up the nearby chess clock, she sets it down by the side of the board he'd already set up:

"Hm. We get to play that game after all."

Then she looks at the detective, filled with a cruel satisfaction at the realization that under-dressed as he is for any prolonged stay outdoors, and weakened from blood loss, he's probably freezing.

_Ah, of course, you're too weak to lift a fur, much less put it over your shoulders._

She could ignore that fact…. or she could toy with him further… torment him psychologically with the reminder of how weak he is and the fact that she knows it, just as she'd relished tormenting him physically.

The latter sounds like the far better option, and as the detective sits, she picks up a black fur from the back of a nearby chair, draping it over his shoulders, as she adds an entirely hypocritical – and entirely proper, considering that she's a lady - tone:

"Here we are. Don't want you to catch a cold."

She pats his shoulders as she drapes the fur over him – a contact that to anyone else would seem friendly, but she knows that to him, her contact can only be another psychological assault, and lets her hands rest firmly on him, her left on his left shoulder, her right on his upper arm… where just an inch higher and she could have him writhing in agony, though for now the threat … the reminder… the fact that instinctually he'd tensed in response to the threat…. is in some ways far more gratifying.

Just for spite, she flings a fur over her own shoulders with a flourish, far more forcefully than is in reality needed before sitting, though again, she is denied the pleasure of seeing any reaction at all from the detective, who unflappably asks:

"A five-minute game?"

Another reminder of the fact that he's on the verge of physical collapse, for all that he hides it well, this time doled out with a vindictive smile:

"If you think you can manage it"

Holmes only smiles – equally falsely – in reply, though his expression isn't vindictive, and she feels more annoyed than ever, opting to make her first move – with white ironically – rather than try to verbally antagonize him further, though she does make sure to advance her pawn with her left hand (despite being right-handed) and start his clock with her right, just to drive home his own comparative disability.

As the chess game progresses, Holmes tells her about his own moves in the Great Game that her family and he have been playing all along. He tells her about his own Bishop – who he apparently trusts, more than she's ever trusted anyone she works with – and expounds on his reasoning as to how he'd find the cleverly-concealed assassin.

_Brilliant…. but of course I already knew that._

She doesn't bother verbally answering his question about the ambassador, he knows Moriartys well enough that it's not really much of a question in any case, and if he had any doubts, the action of slamming down the clock as she starts his timer and offering to recommend his next move will crush them.

She also does not bother telling him about her bishop – Moran – and his function there. Better keep that as a surprise.

Mere seconds later, she hears the gypsy-turned-assassin hollering in rage at being stopped from carrying out his assignment, and the detective's wry comment:

"That doesn't bode well, does it."

She's angry, of course, infuriated in fact that the doctor succeeded in what he'd been left to do, especially when she had not believed it possible. Apparently the detective taught him well. But she'd be damned before letting the detective enjoy even this small victory, and she suppresses the anger, replying coldly:

"Seems your Bishop was of some benefit, after all."

This game is far from over, Holmes says as much, but she cannot resist the satisfaction of dropping a useless hint regarding the next phase she has coming into play, because Rene's usefulness to her is over, and he's not going to live long enough to be of use to anyone else:

"Actually it's in its adolescence."

What has she to fear? Moran will tie up the loose end, one way or another, and at worst, Holmes has only slowed her plans down.

Alexandra hears the gypsy woman wailing for her brother – who was also the only real evidence the detective had against her, and now is forever silenced – and intones with no small amount of icy satisfaction:

"I think you've just lost your most valuable piece."

The detective's gaze doesn't falter, does not show any uncertainty or disappointment, even if it is slightly accusing, and instead of dwelling on that loss, he replies, just as calmly:

"A winning strategy sometimes necessitates sacrifice. War has been averted."

_Oh, yes_…. she thinks. _I'll enjoy this._

She gives him an icy predatory grin, reveling in the opportunity she has to make him watch his so costly victory turn to ash:

"Hmm. Well, I disagree."

"How so?"

This time his tone and expression is challenging. He wants her to explain, and she rises to the occasion, knowing that the detective will not like the answer:

"Didn't you find it strange…. that the telegram you sent didn't inspire any action to stop me?"

The detective doesn't reply, but some of the certainty and fire in his eyes flickers out, and enjoying watching him react far too much to stop, she continues:

"You see, hidden within the unconscious is an insatiable desire for conflict."

_How does it feel knowing that all you have done…. all you have suffered is for nothing?_

For the first time this evening, she sees the pain and weariness that the detective has to be feeling show on his features. She knew he was still bleeding – had seen the blood on the handkerchief he'd used to absorb what had soaked through shirt, sash, and waistcoat…. but now is the first time the battering he's taken truly shows, because now he's bleeding emotionally too.

"So you're not fighting me, so much as you are the human condition. All I want to do is own the bullets and the bandages….War on an industrial scale is inevitable, they'll do it themselves within a few years. All I have to do…. is wait."

_How does it feel knowing that you'll have to watch everything you fought so hard to accomplish burn? How does it feel knowing that you cannot win this battle?_

The last expression she sees in the detective's eyes is a hopeless desolation, before he drops his gaze and sighs, silently but deeply enough that she can see it.

At some level she had hoped that he'd disagree with her, that he'd insist that humanity was not truly so hopeless a case. She'd hoped to call him a fool. But for all his subtle and yet deeply-felt reactions, disbelief was never among them, and some tiny part of her wonders…. if he knew, why did he even bother?

In any case, he'd paid dearly for his pointless meddling, and looking at him now, she can see that the cold reality she's driven into him hurts in ways that few other things can…. because now he looks tired and defeated and utterly broken….. and though this time she doesn't feel sick or even uneasy, the sight is by far not as satisfying as it should be – as it would have been to her father.

Determined to drive the knife deeper, to torment him with the futility of his position, she continues:

"I like Switzerland, they respect a person's privacy here…. particularly if she has a fortune."

_How does it feel knowing that you can't stop me? That investigating me will be nearly impossible, and that no-one will ever believe you?_

With a final predatory grin and a wink, she rises and turns to leave, dismissing the detective's next move haphazardly as she tells him in a tone that allows for no challenge that the game is over …. because he has lost, and she wants him to know how insignificant he's become, finishing with another final barb with which to remind him of the futile price he's paid along the way:

"You should get that shoulder looked at."

If she is to be entirely honest with herself, the detective still makes her subtly…. uneasy, in ways that no-one else ever has. But this time, she has it firmly under control, and there's no reason to kill him – not now…. not yet.

Far better to let him live to see the world burn, and far more interesting for her to know that he's there for another game, should he make the mistake of investigating her again.

Having an actual intellectual rival certainly does make her life far less dull, and seeing him defeated that much sweeter.

Shock is what stops her in her tracks as the detective speaks once more, no longer sounding tired and defeated:

"About that fortune of yours…. I believe it's just been substantially reduced."

Apparently, the detective's arsenal isn't empty yet, and the emphasis he placed on 'substantially' makes her more than a little uneasy. But she's going to have to play this game to find out what he's implying, and suppresses the annoyance, replying:

"King to Rook 2"

"I attended several of your father's lectures. It was in Oslo that I first caught a glimpse of his little note-book. Red leather-bound from Smythson of Bond street. Rook to King's Rook 3. Check."

The uneasiness grows, in part because her father hadn't ever recognized Holmes among his students, and more importantly, the idea of him knowing anything about that book is not something she's comfortable with.

She runs her hand down the concealed pocket in the bodice of her dress, and feels the notebook still there…. so what is he getting at? She turns to face him, hiding the uneasiness behind confidence:

"Bishop to Rook 3."

"Its importance was not fully apparent to me until I observed his penchant for feeding pigeons. Then it occurred that with an empire so enormous, even he must have kept a record of it somewhere. Bishop takes Bishop."

It's true, her father had loved to see the masses groveling at his feet, and she can see how the detective might have reached the conclusion he did, but still, she's missing something vital here. Walking back towards the detective, she announces her own next move:

"Rook to Bishop 4."

"I then only required the notebook itself. He didn't make it easy….. I would need to endure a considerable amount of pain."

Subconsciously perhaps, he moves his wounded arm, clutching at the lapel of his jacket, and from that action alone, as well of the subtle but unmistakable flash of physical pain on his features, she knows that he's referring to Heilbronn…. remembering it.

It was the only time he'd been anywhere near her, or the notebook, but he'd never had a chance to even look at it….. or do anything else but suffer.

Leaving that issue behind momentarily, he forges on, walking around the table as he approaches her, eyes alight once more:

"But the notebook would undoubtedly be encoded, so how then to break the code? Rook takes Rook."

Feeling anger slowly overcome the confusion, as the impossible starts to seem far less so, she fires back:

"Pawn takes Rook."

The detective replies with the next move in only one of the games they have been playing – the less deadly- and the fact that he seems to be enjoying this, infuriates her even more: "Bishop to Bishop seven."

"Queen takes Knight-pawn."

This time the detective's reply concerns the other game:

"Does the 'Art of Domestic Horticulture' mean anything to you?"

_Oh, bloody hell. Schiesse!_

Clearly on a roll, the detective continues: "How could a man as meticulous as your father own such a book and yet completely neglect the flowers in his own window box? Irony abounds."

With him having known about the decryption key in the book, and judging from the satisfaction in his expression as he finishes, the possibility that the notebook she is carrying is not what she thinks it is…. has become far too great for comfort, and she fishes it out of where she has it concealed, pausing as she opens the back cover when she hears the detective interject:

"Never mind. It's safe, in London, where my colleagues are making good use of it…..

The most formidable criminal minds in Europe have just had all their money stolen by perhaps the most inept inspector in the history of Scotland Yard."

Growing further infuriated with the passing of each second – it's not like she can do anything about that theft since none of it was ever in her father's name anyway – she looks back at the notebook in her hands, flipping backwards through pages that are definitely not what she had expected…. not what they were when she'd received the notebook, and it is the sketch of a smiling trout, complete with a pipe, on that first page that is the last straw as her rage boils over.

BE CAREFUL

WHAT YOU

FISH FOR.

That's it. She's going to kill him…. slowly, painfully, and she's going to treasure every second of it.

Like a predator, internally baying for his blood, she circles the detective who now is looking out over the falls and readying his pipe, even as he continues archly:

"He'll be making an anonymous donation to the Widows and Orphans of War Fund. Bishop to Bishop 8. Discovered check."

Turning on his heel to face her, the detective finishes with calm triumph, taking his pipe in his mouth:

"… and incidentally, mate."

Holmes's expression shifts subtly, from triumphant to tense…. aware of his own physical vulnerability as visibly pain rips though him once more from the slight movement of retrieving with his right hand his lighter, which he then holds up to her, asking:

"I seem to have injured my shoulder. Would you mind?"

To anyone else, it would seem that he is indeed asking her assistance, but she is aware of the subtext in his words, in his stance which is well within range for her to attack, and in his gaze which is entirely alert… and yet also holds an element of uncertainty in it, because he knows he's likely not in a state where he can survive.

He knows that she will retaliate for this, whether because her father would have or because he can see it in her barely hidden consuming rage….. and he's practically **inviting** her to do so.

For a fraction of a second she wonders if he will underestimate her – being a woman after all, and one of no great stature – before dismissing the idea entirely. Surely he must have heard about the incident of a few years back where her three would-be rapists wound up dead and she'd gotten away with just a torn dress and no weapons as she hadn't been carrying any to start…. and even if he hadn't, the wariness in his gaze tells her only too clearly that he knows she's dangerous. Good.

She replies with an icy smile that promises he will endure hell: "Be my pleasure."

…. and still, it's not enough. He's already wounded, and weak from bleeding. She'll kill him in the most painful way possible….. but it still is not enough for her – because she's never hated anyone as she hates this detective….. because she wants to destroy him, in **every** way….. because she wants him to know true anguish, in ways that physically torturing him alone fails to achieve.

"Once we've concluded out business here, it's important you know. I shall endeavor to find the most creative of endings for the doctor…. and his wife."

This…. this is a promise she'll keep. Her only regret is that it isn't feasible to make him watch, but that inadequacy is assuaged by the consuming loss and desperation she sees flicker in his gaze, for all that he forces it back, fighting not to let it show… not to let it consume him as he takes a pull though his pipe, helping the tobacco to burn…. and he clears his mind, forcing the pain and fear to the background as he anticipates their fight.

Like a chess grandmaster, the detective is planning his moves dozens of steps ahead… seeing the endgame in his mind before it happens. That is what he has to be doing. It shows in the calculating nature of the way he's looking at her…. it makes sense given what she knows of him. Too bad for him though that she can do the same…. and that this once that skill will give him no advantage at all.

The simulation she runs, mentally, ends with her holding him by a now completely destroyed right arm, pinned on the ledge over the deadly drop, which she only needs to wrench upwards to make his desperate blows fall short, or attack mercilessly yet again to torment him, before finally, when she's had enough - and before he can bleed out, robbing her of the chance to make him taste true helplessness - she throws him to a horrifying certain death at the bottom of the raging waterfall.

_Let's not waste any more of one another's time. We both know how this ends._

She chuckles venomously in anticipation of her victory… of making him bleed anew, and utterly breaking him physically before she kills him. There is one outcome to this fight, only one, with him wounded and weakened, with almost no use of his dominant arm, and a painful vulnerability she'll relish exploiting.

Holmes knows it too. She sees it in the smile he returns to her which does not reach his eyes, and hears it as he chuckles at the futility of his own position. After all, they say Death smiles at those whose life he's about to reap. What can the detective do but smile back?... And even then, it does not hide the repressed pain and desperation in his gaze, not for his own demise, she suspects, but for what he knows he will be powerless to prevent.

Alexandra barely registers the sudden change in the detective's expression, the fiercely burning creativity that drives back the repressed pain, before she's momentarily blinded by the embers which are blown into her eyes, and paralyzed by shock just long enough for Holmes to throw his arms around her, interlocking his fingers behind her back with far more strength than she'd deemed possible given his injury.

She presses her right upper arm against the side of his neck, even as she twists to look at him, to try and understand what he's doing, and in the course of struggling to break his hold, into which he is clearly putting every last bit of strength he has, she dimly registers him pivoting and raising his left leg, bracing it against something high off the ground - likely the table – throwing both of them out of balance.

This should be easy to figure out… easy to plan her way out of, but the confusion is overpowering, and something…. **refuses** to connect within her mind.

Rekindled satisfaction replaces confusion when she hears the door open – because the new arrival can only be the doctor, and she is certain - now that Holmes has some chance of surviving this confrontation - whatever he'd been attempting has become entirely irrelevant.

"_Right on time, doctor."_ she thinks, grinning in a predatory fashion as she anticipates a new outcome to this fight, one where Watson is her primary target.

The good army doctor is fit, but no match for her, and driven by his need to protect his wounded friend – a need she can play on by purposefully attacking the detective at his greatest physical weakness – he will not know when to cut his losses and retreat.

Now….. now she will not kill Holmes, not until she has made him watch Watson die, and though this plan carries a slightly higher risk to her, the satisfaction is well worth it, for even if the detective can somehow manage to defeat her once he has already lost in the most significant way, even if he manages to injure or even kill her – which is doubtful considering his already existent injury – the pain she can inflict upon him is worth the risks.

She wonders – will he attack with renewed fury and in so doing make himself only easier to defeat? Will he manage to hold tight the reins and keep his peerless mind unfettered by the consuming loss? Or will he be so devastated that he'll loose all will to fight because alone as he is, his friend is all he ever had in this hapless world.

It will be tremendously satisfying to watch him shatter, to study his reactions to **this** kind of agony, perhaps even more so than it had been to feel him screaming beneath her hands at Heilbronn…and she knows she will relish toying with his broken spirit as she destroys him physically, all the while reminding him that Watson died because of him.

There is something beautiful in the detective's fierce grief, something exotic by virtue of how inexplicable and foreign it is to her, and she craves the idea of seeing him devoured by the intensity of that agony, both emotional and physical.

Alexandra feels the detective go deathly still for a fraction of a second – weighing his choices perhaps, though there is only one logical choice anyway. She sees the physical pain and overpowering determination in his gaze give way to something that is entirely raw…. and oddly peaceful – and then everything she had been planning shatters into chaos, because this… **this is not what she'd expected**.

Instead of launching the attack she expects, Holmes tightens his hold on her and thrusts with his foot, toppling them both over the edge of the balcony.

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	4. Chapter 4

A/N:

1) As I'll probably forget later, I own nothing!

2) And here... is where we see something interesting happen...

3) Italics are unspoken thoughts (in this fic)

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Everything goes silent for a moment, and as she drifts into weightlessness, drawn inexorably to the certain death that awaits both of them below, she knows she should be horrified, or at least enraged further. But her father had always said that there was something wrong with her instincts and maybe he was right, because instead of what she should be feeling, she is too paralyzed by shock to feel anything but utterly bewildered.

It does not make sense – none of this makes sense. The logical choice would have been for the detective to team up with Watson against her. After all, her plans not withstanding, even she has to admit that had he done so, there was a possibility of both of them surviving – and an even higher one of Holmes alone. He had to have known that, and yet….. and yet?

_Why this, Holmes?_

Dimly she remembers her father telling her that her tendency to try to understand the innermost motives of others - except where their response to bribes or threats was concerned – was an unacceptable trait, and yet once again it is exactly the endeavor she finds herself drawn into, though she supposes that in this case, trying to understand why the detective chose as he did is justified, for such an enormous aberration from the normal **demands **analysis, and it's not as if she has anything else left to do.

It certainly is a better way to pass the time she has left than haplessly screaming – even if she **should** be – but despite laying that concern to rest…. she is no closer to understanding why.

At some level, she supposes she knows why Holmes did it, knows that he chose the certainty of his own death rather than being willing to accept any risk to his friend….. but however she considers the only explanation for his choice…. she cannot fathom the depth of feeling that would have been required for him to cast everything - including his precious logic - aside in that final moment.

Unable to understand…. unable to comprehend his feelings, she looks at the detective who is only now starting to break away from her as they plummet towards the raging maw of death below, and finds herself transfixed by the sheer….. peace… written upon his battered features, the contentment with this price he's paid and what he has achieved by paying it – and though she still cannot understand what he feels, not really, somehow she feels the emptiness within her rise and grow, transforming from a lingering presence in the back of her mind to an unbearable rip in the fabric of her being.

She shouldn't envy him for this one great weakness which has proven to be his downfall.

In fact she should be mocking him for being the one ultimately to bring about his own destruction….. but instead all she can think of is the fact that there has never been anyone in her life who would have done that for her, nor has she ever loved anyone enough that she would so willingly give everything for them … and for all that she is incapable of truly fathoming the intensity with which the detective has to have** loved** his friend, somehow without that – without even the capacity to feel as he has felt – her life feels utterly and completely meaningless.

Never before has she felt so utterly alone – so utterly insignificant – and as she closes her eyes, she finds some solace in the fact that she can almost pretend that here at the end, at least she is not alone….. that her greatest adversary's touch is there to provide some comfort.

It's her most pathetic self-deception yet – almost as pathetic as the fact that she has succumbed to this bleak desolation that has finally managed to fill her – but it does not matter because she'll not have to live with the memory anyway….. and she needs to believe this last lie.

She'd viscerally hated the detective for single-handedly decimating the Moriarty empire. She should still hate him, more so now for dragging her down to death by his side…. and yet somehow none of these losses matter enough to merit hate, in the face of the crushing reality that nothing in her life – not her intellectual triumphs, not the empire she'd built with her father, not even her life itself – was ever truly worth **anything** at all.

It is with an enforced detachment that she registers the detective break away from her and hears the churning of the water draw closer, but the bone-shattering shock of plunging into the icy water and the pain caused by the sudden cold as she is submerged in it, serve as a brutal reminder of reality, and suddenly – finally – her survival instinct kicks in as she desperately suppresses the reflexive reaction to gasp for air, and strikes out for the surface.

It is ironic in the extreme that she has fallen into a relatively peaceful pool formed amidst the chaotic currents, with minimal injury – and even more so, she realizes as she opens fingers that throb from the cold but are not yet numb, and swims for the shore, that she's still clutching the detective's lighter – the one thing that can save her from freezing to death on this wintry night.

Crawling onto the rocky bank, she suddenly finds herself unable to walk away, and in the darkness, she scans the turbulent waters for any sign of the detective, unsure of what she feels when she finally sees him fighting desperately against the violent currents in which he is trapped.

She tells herself that so worthy an adversary deserves this much – deserves to have some witness to his end – and at some level, his fierce struggle in the face of certain death, fascinates her, especially when he is fighting long after she had expected him to have succumbed to pain and exhaustion.

Memories that have laid long dormant and forgotten enter her mind unbidden, perhaps because this unwillingness to give up in the face of so hopeless a situation reminds her of the colt she'd once cared for as a child…. so many years ago.

He'd fit his name well – like a flame he'd been irrepressible, fierce in his unwillingness to give up – and like a flame he'd been extinguished. Somehow after feeling nothing for so long, the memories of how Flame had met his end….. hurt…. and she desperately forces herself not to remember the cold metal of the gun in her shaking hands while the only explanation she can accept for this….. lapse…. is that her mind is faltering as her body weakens from the cold.

Driven to escape this unacceptable state, she struggles to stand, pulled back to the side of the roaring basin with a visceral - almost painful – feeling of shock as she sees the detective's form tossed again in the churning waters, and realizes….. that he's not moving anymore.

Strangely unable to turn away, she watches his broken limp body be tossed in the tides, knowing that he is dying…. and somehow the idea feels like too great of a loss to be permitted so carelessly.

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	5. Chapter 5

A/N:

1) Sincere thanks for reviews and encouragement goes to: Guest, Guest, Guest, and Guest(though I suspect that you're all the same guest). Yep, Schiesse is German for sh*t - figured since she's multilingual and a tad more volatile than her icy creepy dad, she might curse in more than one language, mentally at least. Also as to her past... we'll get there. As to the horse question, she did... but it's a lot more complicated than that.

2) Sincere apologies to anyone waiting on updates for Stark Realizations , Reflections across Enemy Lines, Ouroboros, and Heart of the Storm. They will be updated - I promise, though sadly not for a bit (please see my profile for why).

3) As to the rest of you readers, c'mon... I see the hits... so should I continue this ... or is it so boring it is a waste of cyberspace? Some feedback would be much appreciated! pleeease :-)

Also, anything unacceptably anachronistic, dialogue especially? Let me know, and I'll do my best to fix it.

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Plunging back into the icy water, Alexandra cautiously moves closer, edging towards the whirlpool while trying not to get pulled in herself, and finally with a great effort, she manages to snag the detective's ankle, pulling him close to her as she swims them both towards the safety of the shore.

Now that she is this close, she can _taste_ the blood in the water, knows that the wound on his shoulder has been torn open again and is freely bleeding, and sees that there is a new injury on his head – likely from striking against a rock one of the times he'd been pulled under – which is also streaming blood.

Holmes will die if she cannot stop the bleeding, this much she is certain of, just as she knows that in this cold, they will both perish without shelter and heat. At the same time, while she is strong enough to lift the detective, she knows that she cannot carry him long enough to reach shelter – and even if she could, with the bitter coldness of this night, they'd both succumb before ever reaching the caves that are far downstream.

Realizing it is the only way, she pulls the detective's back against her chest, firmly entrapping his arms between her own, and lets the stream carry them down, struggling to keep them both afloat as she tries to navigate away from the rocks that threaten to crush them as they are pulled downstream by the raging waters.

When the worst of it is over, and as she lets the – now calmer - waters carry them towards the caves that she knows are there, Alexandra takes stock of her new injuries, a few broken ribs and possibly some tearing on her back, though the layered material of her clothing protected her from the worst. Nothing life threatening, or even worth dwelling upon when the freezing cold that is starting to numb her limbs is the far greater danger, and yet she dwells on them obsessively, because it is far easier than even daring to ask why she feels slightly less empty inside, cradling the detective's battered form close to her to protect him from further injury as if…. as if he's something precious.

Dragging them both ashore, and into a small but deep cave which provides adequate protection from the wind, Alexandra quickly gathers dry brush into a pile and lights it, releasing a shaky breath she had not even realized she was holding as the flames blaze to life, providing both much needed warmth and light to see with.

Alarmed – though only in the most pragmatic way - by the sheer volume of blood streaming again from the detective's shoulder which has been torn open anew, blood he cannot afford to loose, she sheds her long skirt, ripping it into bandages – the most use the accursed annoying garment has ever been – and struggles with her hands numb and trembling from the cold to bandage Holmes's shoulder and head tightly enough to stem the bleeding.

By the time she is done – and by far not in any satisfactory manner – the detective is barely breathing, his lips are blue from the cold and his skin pale as death, even in the warmth of the firelight…. and as she pounds against his chest, forcing out what little water is in his lungs, and fighting to keep his heart beating, she cannot help but wonder why she feels this terrible….. desperation….. fueling what may well be a lost battle.

Finally the detective's pulse though still weak and thready does not seem in danger of stopping, but even that small victory pales in comparison to the fact that even beneath her icy fingers, she can feel his body temperature dropping fast, and sees that he is far too weakened to even shiver.

Remembering another obscure memory – a cautionary tale imparted upon her by her maternal grandfather when she'd visited him for the first and last time in Norway - and casting propriety to the wind (after all, she's being practical and the detective is deeply unconscious) she quickly strips off their soaked clothes, spreading them out on the stones to dry, except for his wool dress coat which she drapes over them as she wraps herself around him, turning so that his back is to the fire and his torso pressed firmly against hers, knowing that even with the unstoppable shivering wracking her body, she is far warmer than he, and only this sharing of heat has a chance of saving him.

For what feels like an eternity, there is no visible improvement. Holmes's lips are still a deathly blue, and her icy body can do little to warm him – not fast enough. For some reason, that thought…. that likelihood that she cannot save him…. hurts at some level. It is a vague indistinct kind of pain…. barely there and yet undeniable, and with nothing else to think of, she cannot help but ask why… why does she feel this way?

The only answer that is acceptable is that the detective is more interesting alive than dead – that she wants to understand what makes him tick – and that taking every measure to save him now makes sense because if she does not his death is imminent, and if she does, and comes to regret it later, it will be easy to kill him…..

She tells herself that it would be unacceptable for him to die now that she has worked so hard to prevent that outcome, nothing more.

**Nothing** more.

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	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Sorry about any geographical errors, by the way... I don't know how far Meiringen is from Reichenback (or if indeed there are caves along the way) but assumed that since in the canonical "Final Problem" it takes Watson just over an hour to make the commute on foot, it would take someone carrying weight twice as long...

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When finally the shivering stops, exhaustion takes over, and Alexandra wants nothing more than to sleep – to forget that she is curled up around the body of her greatest adversary, keeping him from freezing to death, and to silence the imagined voice of her father, because she knows what he'd say if only he could see her now, and definitely doesn't care to give any consideration to what he would do.

This is not like last time, though, she reflects. Last time ….. her would-be rescue had been a wilting wallflower with too much information and not the faintest clue how to cope with what her father had done to him…. and that time, she had actually cared, for all that she'd also pitied the man.

The detective is anything but - and for all that she cannot truly name the driving force behind her actions, she can easily name what it isn't…. for it isn't pity – she respects her adversary too much for that, even broken, battered and half dead – and it is not care – she isn't capable of it.

Still, pragmatism dictates that sleep is out of the question. There isn't enough dry brush to keep a fire going, and even with her paltry – long abandoned and incomplete – knowledge of medicine, she can tell that the detective's only chance of surviving will be at the hands of a real doctor, preferably a specialist….. as soon as possible.

Moriartys made it their business to know where all the greatest talent was to be found – to be used or eliminated as needed – and it is lucky for the detective (if she doesn't ultimately kill him, that is, which she may well choose to) that the best surgeons for complicated joint injuries are right in the heart of Switzerland….. but to get to them, she needs first to reach the nearest village and procure a wagon….. and outside, the snow is only falling thicker with each coming hour.

Decision made, she shreds the remainder of her now-dry skirt into bandages with which to change the soaked ones that cover the detective's shoulder and head, and puts his now-dry clothing back on.

He isn't blue from the cold anymore, but he is still deathly pale – and still bleeding heavily from his shoulder, though she – perhaps willfully - doesn't truly register how much until she is forced to….. because while dressing herself in a more conservative version of her former gaudy attire, she comes across the red-notebook, still safely tucked into a pocket – and cannot help but open it and look through the pages once more.

The paper is still wet, but the pencil remains legible – too legible. Yet despite the rage she'd felt seeing it just an hour earlier, it is something else entirely that wells up within her unbidden and unwanted, because the wet paper soaks up like a wick the detective's blood which is covering her hands. It is the brilliant red of fresh blood that won't stop flowing….. and it saturates every page because there is so very **much** of it.

Her eyes flicker between the blood staining the sketch of the trout in front of her – hooked at the end of the fisherman's line, and the crimson soaking through the fresh bandages on the detective's chest, and she shivers – not from the cold - as she cannot help but think of the fact that Holmes had always been the fish…. he'd known it, long before their…. meeting…. at Heilbronn…. but how much of those events had he seen coming?

Flipping though the pages, she watches the trout become a shark before morphing back again, and comes at last to his final admonition….. hoping at some level for some of that consuming rage to efface the uneasiness that fills her…. but it never comes.

At Heilbronn, she'd felt triumphant, and then on that balcony an hour ago, enraged at how truly and thoroughly defeated she was. Now, vividly reminded of both, all she can feel is tired…. so very tired.

Eyeing the flickering remnants of flame, she debates stoking the fire and letting it consume the book – thereby destroying this … physical evidence …. of the fact that despite all it had cost him, ultimately the detective had won – but for what feels like an eternity she debates the action, pathetically unable to give words to a single concrete reason for her strange unwillingness to toss the notebook into the flames, for all that the largest part of her **wants** to burn it, and in the end, she angrily shoves the book back into her pocket, leaving it to rest there undisturbed as she finishes dressing.

The detective is lighter than acceptable for a man of his stature, she decides, as she carefully hoists his unconscious form onto her shoulders and secures him there by looping her arms around his left arm and leg whilst his right she has already secured against his chest to prevent any further damage.

Still, he is heavier than her, even if marginally, and she cannot help the bitter twisted semblance of a chuckle that escapes her as she steps out into the thickening snowstorm, remembering how her father had mercilessly mocked her for not being able to lift even her own body-weight …. and how as a result – and because while teaching her physical combat, he'd not been above fracturing bones to prove his point – she'd committed to an exercise regimen that had made her strong enough to be doing this now.

_How ironic._

Almost two hours later, she's too exhausted to be thinking about irony – or even to remember the cover story that she had concocted to answer the inevitable questions…. Instead, as she slips and falls for the sixth time in the thickening snow (she'd sprained her ankle on the second, not being able to use her hands to balance herself), she can only keep her eyes fixed on the flickering lights shining from the tiny village houses of Meiringen.

Collapsing in the doorway of the first house that opens to her – she'd forgone the inn, not wanting either her or the detective to be recognized – she lets herself, in an uncharacteristic moment of weakness be all but carried to the rug by the fireplace, and once she knows that Holmes is still – somehow – tenaciously alive, she gives in to exhaustion and sinks into a dreamless sleep.

As she has asked, in a couple hours when day breaks, they will awaken her, and she'll have to find transportation into the heart of Switzerland where a decent doctor – an entrepreneur in the field actually - awaits. Again she'll have to spend each minute asking herself what **snapped** in her mind, because her actions since Holmes had dragged her with him over that balcony are utterly **unacceptable**.

In any case, and even without Holmes, she'd have to flee Meiringen at daybreak. Were Moran to suspect that she had survived, here is the first place he'd look for her – and she is not certain that their meeting would involve any semblance of a partnership rather than a bullet from his sniper rifle.

With the detective (paradoxically) in the equation, she knows it would be the latter for certain.

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	7. Chapter 7

A/N:

1) Sincere thanks for the follow, whoever you are!

2) Sincere apologies to anyone waiting on updates for Stark Realizations , Reflections across Enemy Lines, Ouroboros, and Heart of the Storm. They will be updated - I promise, though sadly not for a bit (please see my profile for why).

3) As to the rest of you readers, c'mon... I see the hits... so should I continue this ... or is it so boring it is a waste of cyberspace? Some feedback would be much appreciated! pleeease :-)

Also, anything unacceptably anachronistic, dialogue especially? Let me know, and I'll do my best to fix it.

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At daybreak, Alexandra fakes a French accent and spins for the family that has given her and the detective shelter, a convoluted-but-believable lie about her 'husband' having been injured by robbers as they had traveled together, leaving them in dire straits with no transportation or possessions but what had been on her as she'd fled, terrified.

She balks inwardly at her own account – because she'd have killed anyone who thought to attack her rather than fleeing from a fight – but it is exactly what would have been expected of a woman, poor defenseless creature that she is seen as, and it also excuses her requests for the utmost secrecy, should anyone ever ask, because she tells them that her 'husband' had – in the course of defending himself – inadvertently killed one of his attackers, and the remainder had vowed revenge, which could well extend to anyone who had helped the couple escape.

The same tale woven with just the right amount of danger and fear allows her to manipulate a local driver into selling her a spare carriage rather than insisting that he drive, albeit for more than twice the worth of the run-down wreck, and she wastes no time in setting off for Bern with the unconscious detective bundled securely inside.

It is an entirely different lie that she seamlessly delivers – now with a Norwegian accent – to the staff at Dr. Kocher's practice, because the doctor will be operating on the detective, he'll know that the wound is not a simple stab wound from a burglar's knife…. so this time the detective becomes one Mr. Sigerson, an agent of the Norwegian government, and she is not his wife, but rather a secretary for his elder brother – also a government agent - who had sent her to ensure that the younger Sigerson received adequate treatment for injuries he sustained in an intelligence deal that had devolved into a violent interrogation.

If nothing else, like her father, she is a master manipulator when she so chooses, and the doctor believes her – not surprisingly, really, given a barely-alive patient who had clearly been tortured.

Like all good Swiss citizens he has his own theories about which government could have possibly let its agents be such "diabolical fiends", and she leaves him to them, stating simply that it is beyond her status – as a trusted but lowly private secretary - to know any details of what indeed transpired….. she is only here because she has no affiliation with the government and thus will not draw unwanted attention.

That is enough explanation to ensure the surgeon's silence as well, and he wastes no time in getting to work on his new patient.

Alone once again, Alexandra cannot help but think of the doctor's words, spoken in ignorance as he described the very person before him who just yesterday would have killed him without regret for such an utterance….. but though the label riles her, she feels too tired to care to take action, even if she could get away with it at this point.

Willfully diverting her unacceptably beleaguered thoughts, she reviews which portions of her lie need refinement, and which can stand unaltered.

Should the detective survive, he'll undoubtedly ask who had brought him here, and that is exactly the reason why she introduced a brother figure at all, hoping that even with the misplaced nationality, he'll assume that it's simply a precaution on the part of Mycroft Holmes – who, she knows, is part of the British government's intelligence sector.

That much is adequate. She doesn't truly look forward to the inevitable revelation that it was her all along, doesn't want to have to justify to her adversary decisions that she cannot even justify to herself…. doesn't want to be forced to decide what the detective** is** to her…. _prisoner? enemy? extraordinary specimen?_ _victim? _….. because that will be a necessity the moment he becomes aware of her presence – if not for any other reason because he will demand that knowledge, and even if she were inclined to toy with him, her own sanity dictates that she figure out where they stand.

In any case, and momentarily forgetting her own doubts, she reflects that – less problematically - she can even avoid being anywhere near the detective when he is awake by claiming that there had been some past interest between them before she married another, and asking, 'for the sake of not dredging up old hurts' that she not be mentioned at all, especially since her only function there is as a proxy for his brother….. a falsehood which will at least postpone their inevitable confrontation until there will not be an audience to witness it.

…. _Enough…._

Tired of dwelling obsessively on perfecting her lies and concealing the truth that they cover, she paces restlessly outside the surgery and tries to think of anything that will not lead her mind back to the detective… or her father who would be rolling in his grave if only he could see her now…. or the inevitable doubts about what the **bloody hell** she is doing by bringing Holmes here instead of killing him as she should have.

Strangely, perhaps, she finds very little to think of that does not somehow lead back to this convoluted mess.

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	8. Chapter 8

A/N:

1) As I usually forget to mention, I own nothing (except Alexandra sort of) though there's no telling if that's a good thing or not...

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Her efforts to temporarily forget the situation she has managed to entangle herself in all go wasted when the surgeon steps out briefly to speak with her, and informs her that Mr. Sigerson, already has little chance of surviving, and will have even less if operated on …. but that without surgery, he will almost certainly remain unable to properly use his right arm, **ever **again.

It's a choice between an almost certain death, and an even more certain permanent impairment, and with their patient deeply unconscious and too weak for any delays to be allowed in order for his family to be contacted, it is to her that the decision falls.

The fact is strangely…. uncomfortable, and though Alexandra answers in the affirmative, telling them to do the operation – though once the doctor disappears into the surgery, leaving her alone, she tells herself that Holmes would have made the same choice, that he'd rather die than be so severely crippled for life (and had he chosen the latter, it **would** be the death of him) - there is an inexplicable uneasiness that brews within her, and unable to find peace where she is, she walks outside and paces up and down the snowy street.

The idea of making that decision had…. shaken her internally….. and that fact in itself is problematic because she knows she should be unperturbed by the idea of the detective dying – she should be unperturbed by the idea of **killing** him, should his presence be more trouble than satisfying her curiosity is worth.

She tells herself that it's all still true, and that the only thing bothering her about the strong possibility of the detective dying…. is the effort she put into keeping him alive, and the disappointment of loosing such a prized and fascinating specimen.

It's a perfectly acceptable explanation – to her – the only one in fact…. and yet it rings pathetically hollow when the door of the clinic bursts open as a corpse is carried out, and all she can see is the dark unruly hair that sticks out from beneath the bloodied white sheet.

By the time she recovers from the shock that fills her – and a host of other emotions she pointedly ignores – the body is gone, loaded into a hearse bound for a funeral home, too far away now for her to run down with a sprained ankle, and all she can do is rush back inside, entirely disregarding the disapproving clucking of the elderly nurse as she bursts though the door of the surgery.

Holmes is alive – that is the one thing that registers – but there is no need for her to try to justify any feelings of relief, because there **aren't any**.

Seeing him lying there on that white marble table, deathly pale, barely breathing, and with blood that he cannot afford to loose streaming out of his right shoulder which is now entirely cut open, beyond the wound from the hook – even though this new damage is in an effort to fix the damage that she caused - is visual confirmation of the fact that one way or another, he simply cannot survive this.

Inexplicably transfixed by that realization, Alexandra does not register the proximity of the nurse until she feels the older woman's hands wrap around her arm, pulling her away, and she internally chides herself for so unacceptable a lapse of attention.

Some of the turmoil brewing within her must show, because instead of the expected chiding, it is a rather maternal cooing that reaches her ears as she is guided into a chair:

"Oh, come away child, before the blood makes you faint."

The assumption, for all that the older lady meant well, does nothing but infuriate her further, and she practically spits back:

"It doesn't. I'm…" _….a Moriarty._

She realizes her slip fractions of a second before it's too late, and instead of what she'd been about to say, covers with:

"…. A surgeon's daughter. I have seen my father at work."

There is something unnervingly ironic about her lie, because it is her father's 'work' that has desensitized her to seeing people bleed….. to **making** people bleed… but he wasn't healing anyone. Even more ironic is the similarity of the marble surgical table upon which the detective is bleeding out at this moment to the one she'd used as a desk at Heilbronn…. and for some reason that fact only makes her mood blacker.

At some point the nurse realizes that she will achieve nothing by talking to her, and Alexandra is left alone, until she finds a new source of unwanted company in the form of the – far too meddlesome – clergyman who had likely been there to perform last rites for the now deceased patient – whoever he was, and now sits by her side saying in what he thinks is a comforting tone:

"Child, you must not burden yourself in this way. Instead have faith."

This time she cannot tell whether she is amused by these words or just further aggravated.

_I have no use for faith, and I am __**not **__burdened._

She only gives voice to the latter statement, and is rewarded with an entirely unwanted and intolerably patronizing:

"You are, child, there is no shame in admitting it. I can see that you blame yourself for their condition, and perhaps they have been in your care, but all that happens comes by the will of the Lord, even great travails, for He works in mysterious ways."

_Daft blind useless fool with his useless lord._

This time she does not bother to voice her thoughts, and after a final blessing the clergyman departs. Yet despite his absence the anger burning anew within her does not abate and his words linger in her mind like a swarm of angry accusing hornets, even as she mentally curses him for his presumption.

The only thing he got right – likely from seeing that she was the one asked to make decisions for the patient's health – was that the detective had been in her "care" or perhaps more accurately in her keeping. That word at least could be used to describe the fact that he had been entirely at her disposal at Heilbronn, even if she had admittedly underestimated him.

It is also true that his physical condition is the direct result of that … keeping…. but that is where the accuracy of that daft meddler's assumptions end, because she does **not** blame herself.

She's a Moriarty. **She doesn't do guilt**, or regret, or remorse…. or any variants thereof. If anyone is to blame for the detective's condition, it is he alone. He'd meddled in her business and paid the price.

Really, it was only fair. She does not need to blame some hypothetical god's will for that, because the fact is, she's fine with acknowledging her actions … Why wouldn't she be?

In the ensuing silence, some small part of her mind, the meddlesome part that has always tried to dwell upon useless philosophy - the part her father had always been so very annoyed by - asks why the fate of a world shared by all of humanity was entirely her business and not the detective's at all… but she silences it quickly …. too quickly, perhaps.

Why should she care? The question is **irrelevant**.

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	9. Chapter 9

A/N:

1) Sincere thanks to: What 1987 and mg333 for the fave and follows. Since I've got very little feedback on this (and serious doubts of my own about this fic in particular), the support is a huge and very welcome encouragement!

2) To anyone waiting on updates for Stark Realizations , Reflections across Enemy Lines, Ouroboros, and Heart of the Storm. ... I'll **finally** be going home this weekend where I can actually find the solitude I need to write (instead of just posting things already written with a few last minute revisions at the WIFI cafe) so hang in there :-)... and again sorry it's been sooooo long.

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The first time the detective wakes, after the surgery, it is with a hoarse guttural cry of agony, and the first thing he does is blindly claw at his right shoulder, even as he futilely glances around the darkened room, trying to understand where he is.

Alexandra silently retreats, calling for the doctor who has remained close to monitor him, and stays behind, peering though the curtains and watching as Kocher and his nurse enter the room, and try to stop the detective from tearing the stitches open.

They don't know that it is - at first - both fear and agony that draw the ragged gasps from his lips. They only are aware of the latter, and assume that his clawing at his shoulder is because of the pain it causes him ….. not because in the haze of semi-consciousness, with his shoulder hurting more than ever before, and entirely blind to his surroundings, an enormous part of his mind can only conclude that he's still at Heilbronn…. still her captive.

She wonders - detachedly - if his mind is convinced that the hook is still embedded deep in his shoulder, wonders to what extent the pain registers as that of the cold unforgiving sharp metal tearing into his flesh….. wonders how long it will take him to realize that those first hazy perceptions are wrong.

He takes under fifteen seconds. It shows in the steadying of his breathing which is still harsh and pained….. but no longer possessing the ragged edge of horror… and Alexandra vaguely wonders how she should describe – were she so inclined - the emotions that taint her detachment.

Once the lamps are lit, enough to allow him to see – and especially after they tell him that his brother arranged for his care – he calms entirely, seamlessly falling into the persona that he can only assume the elder Holmes had created to protect him and accenting his pronunciation accordingly for the few words he does manage to voice before quickly sinking back into unconsciousness, aided by the morphine they inject him with before leaving for the night, satisfied with their work.

They are not there to watch his restless sleep that does nothing to truly give him relief from the burning agony….. They don't know that he awakens another eight times …. and each time it is as harrowing as the first, even without a waking scream, though unlike the first time, he realizes that he's safe – not at Heilbronn anymore – on his own, just as soon as he's truly awake.

_They don't know why._

The eighth time is the worst, because as the detective becomes marginally less exhausted, courtesy of his short intervals of sleep, pain wins over the desperate need for rest, and it becomes progressively harder for him to return to sleep once he awakens ….. and this time, she finds herself sitting silently in the darkness, unable to do anything but listen to the measured ragged breathing which betrays his indescribable pain, until he finally falls asleep once more.

He'd been awake for almost an hour….. it felt like an eternity.

She should leave now – she should get some much-needed rest herself – but the fact barely registers, and instead she finds herself sitting by his bedside through the night, dosing him with morphine in small increments to keep the pain under control because she knows that once he awakens she can do nothing.

In what is left of the night, the detective remains asleep. It's a restless pained sleep, but at least it is uninterrupted, and she justifies to herself her choice to stay with the simple fact that helping him to rest is a good investment – he's far more interesting alive than dead – nothing more.

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	10. Chapter 10

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should have known it would not be this easy, and early the next morning, she curses herself for her stupidity when the detective starts to shiver violently, and one single touch confirms the possibility that her long-abandoned perusal of medicine predicted all along… because the detective's skin feels like a furnace.

**Of course** infection had set in – what else could she have expected of so deep a wound under such adverse conditions. Even if she does not count the fact that the collapse of that tower had stirred up enough debris to ensure it (and the hook certainly hadn't been cleaned beforehand), there is no denying that the lack of proper sanitation and medical supplies on that train would have… and with the detective weakened further by the plunge into a freezing waterfall which had itself nearly killed him….. really, she should have seen this coming all along.

She should have known it was inevitable, should have accepted that fact and left him in those icy waters. She should accept it now, because fascinating though he is, he does not **matter** to her….. no-one does.

She **should** just let him die…. instead, she finds herself calling the doctor back to his bedside, demanding that he do everything in his power to save the detective, and pointedly ignores the opinion that – wisely perhaps – remains unspoken, yet is obvious all the same: He can't be saved.

Dr. Kocher calls for one of his colleagues - a pathologist – but even with their combined expertise, it is only too clear that their prognosis remains unchanged, though they put it far more tactfully than that….. and somehow despite everything she should do, she doesn't let up on her insistence that they try whatever it takes to save him…. or let herself ask if it is truly sensible to assume that her repetitive borderline-hostile demands are the cause for the rough edge that creeps into her voice.

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	11. Chapter 11

A/N:

1) I'm back finally - and sorry for dissapearing for so long. I returned from taking care of my father to find all my pet canaries dead or dying(in my hands), and myself fired, though despite practicality it is the former which has taken the most out of me, and for a long time, I haven't been able to even think about writing (though that's probably a good thing since as you may know when I'm depressed I write tragedies WITH tragic endings, not just liberal angst along the way).

Anyway, I hope that these first efforts do not dissapoint (I cannot tell if I'm entirely happy with how they turned out but I can't say I'm happy with much lately so I suppose I may be a biased jury).

In any case, I hope to be updating more regularly.

2) Sincere thanks for reviews and encouragement goes to: mg333, hamsterpickle1313, and What 1987. As usual, I'll respond via PM to anyone I can.

Also, thanks for all the faves, alerts, etc, it is most encouraging.

3) On a lighter note, I have made and posted fanfic covers for all my fics, and since the resolution here is terrible and they look awful (not complaining... images take up so much cyberspace), I also posted full-res versions on my tumblr, which is: **astragalactic dot tubmlr dot com** (spaces removed of course)... so if any of you are digital-art afficionados like myself, enjoy!

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Holmes writhes in agony, too far ensnared in the throes of fever and delirium to care about hiding the torment wracking his ever weakening body, or to even realize that his desperate futile clawing at his wounded shoulder will only hurt him more. As a result, the doctors are forced to entirely immobilize his right arm, swathing his shoulder in enough bandages that his desperate fingers cannot reach though them to tear the wound open anew, but it is their only small …. meaningless…. victory, because nothing they try can bring down the fever that ravages his ever weakening body, and no amount of morphine can seem to deaden the pain.

Seeing the detective like this… aches deep within her, and Alexandra doesn't know why. Perhaps it is because it's disconcerting to see perhaps the world's most brilliant mind so far gone that he cannot figure out where or when he is….. Perhaps it is because only she knows why he's suffering so – physically and mentally - and that knowledge has started to feel strangely like a burden.

Perhaps it's because the doctors assume his actions are fueled by agony alone - and only Alexandra knows the terrible truth that Holmes, lingering somewhere between reality and unconsciousness is probably reliving the **horror** he'd experienced at her hands…. and lost in memories made worse by the never ending agony…. trying to remove the hook from his shoulder, because he cannot any longer separate his memories from reality.

That night, she sits by his side, replacing the nurse who has left, pressing cool cloths to his brow in an effort to stave off the possibility of brain damage, because he bloody well had better not die, not after all this…. and she suspects he'll want his mind intact.

The next night, she does the exact same thing, and tries not to notice the shadows betray how his cheeks have sunken in.

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	12. Chapter 12

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He is dying. They all know it but none dare admit it. He is wasting away with each passing day, and though they can get him to drink small amounts of water during the ever-fewer spells of semi-lucidity, no-one expects him to last more than another two days.

By the third day of the raging fever, even Alexandra has given up the inexplicable desperate hope she has harbored, and while part of her wants to walk away, she finds herself rooted by his side as night falls, even if this is a death-watch.

She does not know why the idea of the detective dying bothers her so.

Had she not just mere days ago **wanted **this?

Perhaps it is because after all that he has accomplished in his life, after fighting so hard and triumphing over so much, he deserves better than to die this way – better than to loose everything to a microbe.

Perhaps it is not that at all.

Alexandra does not know, and after two sleepless nights of hearing his endless suffering, and watching him waste away before her eyes, she feels too tired to care about dissecting these confounded emotions that seem to be eating her from the inside out.

Again he is drawn by the pain into the semi-lucid state where the fever has him trapped in memories that are real to him, and again she pulls away into the shadows, unable to give any comfort at all….. just as she is unable to turn away and not watch.

Once he lapses into unconsciousness, she approaches, replacing the cool cloths upon his head that his ever-weakening agonized writhing has displaced…. and wonders when and how the sight of his torment has started to hurt her….. wonders why nothing can seem to dispel the ache in her chest that has made everything else so utterly ….. meaningless.

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	13. Chapter 13

A/N:

1) Sincere thanks for reviews and encouragement goes to: Random Google, and mg333. As usual, I'll respond via PM to anyone I can.

Also, thanks to anyone who faved or followed, it is most encouraging.

3) In case I'm not back to update for a couple weeks (which I probably won't be), Happy Holidays to all!

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By the fourth night, when the doctors leave, she knows the detective will likely not live through the fifth. It shows in their defeated and pitying looks, though they still somehow remain more detached than she can, for all that the situation should be reversed ….. and again, though by now trying to safeguard his mind when his body is dying is the epitome of futility, she continues her nightly vigil.

This time when he awakens from his fitful sleep – something he does less and less often as his life ebbs away - she stays. With the detective so far gone, and without the perfume that she'd worn the times they had met or any significant light to see with, she supposes he will not recognize her anyway, as long as he cannot see her clearly, so instead of leaving, she climbs up and kneels behind him, cradling his broken body against her chest - at least this way he seems to be breathing a little easier.

Something within her breaks when the morphine wears off entirely, burned away by the raging fever, and he starts to writhe in pain again, by now too weak to even utter a groan, though the ragged gasps are only too telling of his physical torment…. and she fights the urge…. the need… to try and speak soothing words to him, condemned to silence by her own actions.

Spent and broken, breathing shallower than ever before, Holmes slips again into a restless sleep which holds him in its deadly embrace for the rest of the night…. and though all is still now, Alexandra finds no solace in the heavy **accusing** silence. Instead she remains where she has perched herself, holding him close as if her hold – her touch which has brought him to this terrible state – could shield him from death itself, even as beneath her fingertips where she is holding his right hand to brace his arm, she can feel his thready ever-weakening pulse counting down to a certain death.

His sweat-soaked dark locks brush her lips as she dips her head slightly to look at him, eyes fixed on his features which show remnants of his pain even now, while in the faint traces of moonlight that filter through the window his pale flesh, glistening with a sickly sheen of sweat and marred with cuts and bluish bruises, resembles nothing more than a broken marble effigy to one already doomed….. and in the silence she finds herself asking why that idea… hurts so much.

It would be remotely acceptable if the thought of that outcome simply disappointed her, vexed her even, but the truth is….. it **hurts**….. deep down inside where she'd felt nothing for practically an eternity…. it aches and she is powerless to stop feeling this consuming pain that fills the place inside her which had once been a ravenous void.

She does not know if this is regret…..

Probably not; she doubts she is capable of it.

She does not know how to begin understanding why ….. why she is kneeling here and cradling the detective's dying body in her arms instead of celebrating that the only opponent that could ever ruin her will no longer be a problem… why reality has become so hard to bear. She only knows that she'd do anything…. anything at all to take away from the detective all this pain and horror….. anything to dispel the dark clouds of mortality that gather on the horizon and inexorably draw closer.

Kneeling there, she doesn't pray – cannot pray to a concept she finds no reason in – and she still does not need to blame the will of some all-powerful entity for this….. nightmare. But she also cannot blame the detective anymore. The human condition aside, it's always been his world as much as hers. He had every right to try and stop her.

No. This … this is her responsibility, hers alone.

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	14. Chapter 14

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Alexandra watches, with more than a little resentment, as the first rays of light seep in through the small gaps between thick draperies, signaling the beginning of yet another day.

It has been close to four days since the life-threatening surgery to attempt repairing the enormous physical damage she had caused the detective, just over five days since she had given him no choice but to jump into a freezing raging waterfall, and just over six since she had tortured him…. and he is slowly but surely slipping away with each passing hour.

There is no denying it. For all his strength and determination, for all that he'd handled that initial terrible injury well enough to still make an appearance at - and win - their final game, even his body had its breaking point, she'd pushed him past it, and this cruel truth manifests in the fact that in the past hour, the broken form she cradles close has become increasingly still and silent.

He's still breathing – shallow and slow – but the shivers that had coursed though him, proving that his body was still fighting to stay warm, have all but stopped, just as have the harsh pained gasps that would burst from his lips as he'd thrashed in her arms, no longer having the energy to truly awaken…. and perhaps this at least should be some solace, because he seems peaceful at last, no longer aware of the agony….. but it isn't because this is the peace of the dying…. and somehow, it shouldn't end this way.

Angrily, she fights back the moisture that prickles in the corners of her eyes – she bloody well isn't going to shed tears for her greatest adversary – even as she closes them, hanging her head so that her forehead just hovers over the detective's right shoulder and his head leans against hers, and she sighs, silently.

There is nothing left to say, but her mind never stops, and in the ensuing silence, treacherous thoughts snake their way through it like fissures propagating through rock.

… _If only I'd realized before Heilbronn that the world is too dull without you in it…._

…_. if only I hadn't immediately chosen to use such extreme violence against you (because there were other options that wouldn't have been so deadly)_

…_. if only I'd never harmed you at all….._

That last thought has no justification that she can find – unless she is about to claim some kind of theoretical moral high ground and tell herself she is opposed to torture on principle alone, but even she isn't that much of a hypocrite, not within the confines of her own mind at least – which makes it entirely unacceptable, but she feels too weary to even muster any anger in its wake. It simply doesn't matter. Nothing seems to anymore…..

Perhaps she can call it a small personal victory that she ultimately doesn't weep over the detective's inevitable death. It was easier when she felt nothing, and maybe, she is reverting to that state….. maybe all of this is just an anomaly which will pass, leaving her unchanged and unfeeling like before.

She is proven wrong in time, however, because though she'd been able to smother the tears that had threatened, she cannot deny the overwhelming relief that floods her when over two hours later – as the sounds of the doctor entering a room down the hall bring her back to the present – she realizes that Holmes's breathing hasn't slowed further from the last time she counted its pace, and if anything it seems just a little less shallow.

Carefully resting him back onto the bed as she resumes what has become her usual post by the bedside, she presses the back of her hand to his forehead, suddenly staggered by how normal his temperature is, because though, while his head had been resting against hers earlier, she had dimly registered that he didn't seem warmer than her any longer, at the time she had interpreted it as a final fatal plunge in temperature, and it is in this moment that she realizes that perhaps…. just perhaps, the fever has finally broken.

Maybe, just maybe, this isn't the inevitable defeat at the end of a long war of attrition but rather an unprecedented victory.

Alexandra waits impatiently for Dr. Kocher to arrive, unable to remember feeling this anxious in years, and it seems like hours have elapsed before finally he does enter the room, and quickly verifies that the so-called Mr. Sigerson's temperature, breathing and pulse are all nearly normal, barring a slight depression in all three due to physical exhaustion.

Even then, the doctor still seems hesitant to give a positive prognosis, perhaps for the same reason that she feels uneasy, because Holmes is just too … still…. in a way that seems entirely wrong for him, and it is not until the usually soft-spoken doctor raises his voice to a sharp yell, eliciting a barely noticeable frown of annoyance from the deeply-asleep detective, proving that he is not indeed comatose, that they both know he's finally beginning to recover.

The Swiss surgeon, and mere minutes later his colleague, both call this sudden turn of health a miracle. Alexandra doesn't argue, of course, though she is firmly of the opinion that this sudden triumph of the detective's battered body against all odds is a testament to his stubborn unwillingness to give up, rather than the action of some unseen hand, even as some smaller part of her cannot help but wonder, wryly, if perhaps the detective is far too fond of turning the tides in the extreme endgame for his own good.

Recalling his own words to her "Bishop to Bishop 8, discovered check… and incidentally, mate.", Alexandra cannot help the small smile that demands to be acknowledged as she imagines Holmes playing chess with Death itself and employing a similar strategy….. moving one of his pieces when it seems all hope is lost, only to reveal the piece behind it in a perfect position to capture his opponent's king ….. but that flicker of admittedly impressed amusement doesn't last long, because inevitably she remembers her reaction to those words, she remembers what she had planned then for both the detective and anyone he'd ever cared for …. and she shivers internally, despite the warmth of the room.

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	15. Chapter 15

A/N:

1) Sincere thanks for reviews and encouragement - and a much needed push - goes to: Random Google, mg333, What 1987, and AP. As usual, I'll respond via PM to anyone I can.

Also, thanks to anyone who faved or followed, it is most encouraging.

2) I'm very sorry for the long wait. College, family issues and an AWOL muse have been taking their toll.

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Were anyone to describe her silent vigil, standing by the bedside, they might have called her a statue – indeed the feeling of cold seeping though her veins makes her feel like one – and yet despite her apparent stillness, there is no peace to be found within her as she stares endlessly at the unconscious detective.

Holmes seems to be – finally – healing now, and yet despite that, the past days (the aftermath of what she did to him) have literally taken practically everything from him. His mind seems intact - insofar as can be diagnosed based on reflexes alone – but he's still deathly pale, more so now that the flush of fever is gone from his features, he is unacceptably wasted and gaunt… and in all looks more than a decade older than he had just a week earlier.

Despite that, though, in this moment he seems entirely at peace – and more than ever she doesn't want to shatter that peace.

She had, of course, never asked, but in the past two nights it seemed to be the immediate physical agony of his wounds that was awakening him, not nightmares…. not any longer, and she can only guess that somehow in those tortuous spells of fevered semi-lucidity, eventually the detective had come to the realization that he was indeed safe – that the hell of Heilbronn was in the past and would stay that way, and somehow he had put that nightmare behind him.

It probably helped that he'd believed the illusion she had fed to the doctors about his brother overseeing his care. She had known from the instant she'd seen his reaction to that information that this deception was a good choice, because despite the entirely separate lives they led, clearly the detective trusted his sibling. The way the tension had drained from his form at the mention of the word 'brother' had been sufficient proof of the fact, and of course – perceptive as ever even in that much pain - he'd never doubted the honesty of the doctor, who was being entirely honest, to the best of his knowledge.

But of course, there is no doubt that this illusion is bound to collapse. Misdirection is pointless when Holmes is involved – something she has learned the hard way – and he will realize that it was her all along… so it shouldn't matter when that happens or how, except that somehow it does, because he's still physically devastated, entirely vulnerable, and in pain… he will be so for a long time, and she doesn't want to make it worse.

She doesn't want to bring back the pain and the horror…. she doesn't want to bring back the nightmares that the detective's mind has carefully buried in the past….. she doesn't want to make those memories relevant to the present again, and perhaps it is for the best if now, now that there is no reason to stay here, she leaves.

This option is one she'd have refused to even consider, just days ago….. because there is nowhere left for her to go, and nothing to do. The Moriarty empire is in ruins, and perhaps if she were so inclined, she could spend her time rebuilding it, but she isn't sure she wants to – not when it means that the detective and she will clash again, and all for something that had proven ultimately so…. meaningless – and of course, she isn't overly fond of reneging on her plans once again, because she had wanted to study the detective…. wanted to understand his nature that was at once so alike hers in many ways and entirely unlike hers in even more ways…. but that too seems like the wrong choice, and she hates herself for being so easily paralyzed by indecision.

Ironically it is the doctor who convinces her to leave, in the process of attempting to achieve the opposite effect, because when Holmes stirs slightly, and she leaves the room, not wanting him to see her if he awakens, the doctor follows her, after ascertaining that his patient was only shifting in his sleep, and tries to convince her to stay.

Again she repeats her alibi, claiming to have courted the younger Sigerson before breaking off the engagement for another – and very likely breaking his heart in the process – years earlier, but the doctor is strangely insistent, in a vaguely nervous fashion, and he only gets to admitting the true reason for his insistence after she all but demands an honest explanation, saying, almost conspiratorially:

"Forgive me. I know that this isn't a matter which should be discussed with a lady, but you leave me with no recourse. Those diabolical fiends who did this to Mr. Sigerson…. they didn't just stab him, it appears that wound was caused by something curved like a hook, and they probably dragged him by it… a lot of muscles were torn, and he's lucky that he just barely escaped having the bones ripped from the joint or broken…. "

Mistaking her silence for confusion, or perhaps offended female sensitivities, and fortunately entirely oblivious to the knotted seething coil of raw painful emotions tangling in her chest - because the doctor is nearly entirely accurate in his guesses and all too descriptive in explaining exactly what she herself had done to the detective, belying her subconscious cowardly attempts to avoid analyzing the damage she had always well known was the result of her actions – he pushes on, hastily adding:

"But my point is …. that what he suffered is beyond comprehension, and after experiencing something of this nature, I assure you, any friendly presence, even if you are not on the best of terms….. anyone who reminds him that he's not there anymore, will be greatly soothing to him."

Alexandra forces a brittle smile to hide the burning within, and the doctor leaves, believing that he has succeeded in convincing her to stay. In this though, he couldn't be more wrong, and the mere fact of that might be amusing, given how horrifyingly right he was – his ignorance of the truth notwithstanding - about everything else…. because she cannot comprehend what Holmes had experienced.

She knows the facts, the number of nerves and blood vessels in the shoulder, and the force with which she had savagely pulled at him…. she heard his agonized screams – indeed she had reveled in them – and laughed as she felt his body convulse from the pain….. and yet somehow the experience, the pain and horror, remain foreign to her, as they only ever can be.

On an entirely more practical note, the doctor is right in stating that a **friendly** presence – even a marginally friendly one - would have been soothing in the wake of that horror, which, with the detective's near isolation, would mean the presence of his brother or Dr. Watson….. or maybe in some very limited way, one of the constables of London, some of whom if rumors were accurate seemed to like the detective enough. Hell, even the 'most inept inspector in the history of Scotland Yard' would have been to an extent (for very short periods of time, she imagines) welcome….. but not her, **never her**….. and the doctor had summed that point up perfectly: Holmes doesn't need reminders.

With a final look behind her, Alexandra turns away, leaving payment for their medical assistance with one of the orderlies, and slips out the front door, disappearing into the thickly falling snow.

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	16. Chapter 16

A/N:

1) Sincere thanks for reviews and encouragement goes to: mg333, What 1987, and AP. As usual, I'll respond via PM to anyone I can.

Also, thanks to anyone who faved or followed, it is most encouraging.

2) Sorry for the long wait. College, family issues and an AWOL muse have been taking their toll.

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She should flag down a carriage…. it is freezing cold, and she'd left her coat hanging in the detective's room, not wanting to go back there and argue with the doctor again – or, as she is loathe to admit to herself, face her unconscious victim – just to retrieve the garment…. but she needs to clear her mind, needs time alone to decide her next move, and walking, even among crowds, satisfies that need, because they are as nonexistent to her as she is to them, and even surrounded by multitudes, she has ever been alone.

Alexandra's steps feel without purpose – cold and numb, as lifeless as she feels in a reality that has little sense left in it – and yet she does indeed have a destination in mind, one that at last she reaches, and only now has to wait for the next train and decide where she will go from here.

It makes sense, she supposes, that she feels left adrift, because her only direction in life had been supplied – and at times enforced - by her father, but now that option isn't a viable one any longer, and for the first time she truly has no idea what to make of her existence. So, perhaps, it is acceptable to feel lost, confused even. What is not acceptable is that she feels vaguely hollowed out and broken from within.

What is not acceptable is that she cannot be certain if she even wants to make anything of her existence.

She finds herself asking with increasing frequency if there is anything at all that she can do with her life beyond following what her nature had ultimately proven to be, and wonders why part of her wants to fight a battle she can never win, even as the greater part of her feels so…eroded… that she just wants to sleep forever and forget.

Maybe she'll go to Norway, maybe she still has some extremely distant living relations there, and in their ignorance to her true identity, she can for a while forget…. but it isn't a solution, because the family life will never be able to hold her – because it's never been mentally engaging enough for her - and sooner or later, she imagines that she will inevitably become what she was, or rather be forced to acknowledge what she is, because there is no denying it.

When the next train arrives, Alexandra still has not reached a decision, but she is fully prepared to get on it – because the more distance she puts between herself and Holmes the better, and because she is shivering from the cold and desperate for sleep – until suddenly she is alert once more, responding instinctually to an imminent threat that she has not yet truly comprehended.

Her mind catches up after looking once more quickly around her, when her eyes are caught by the headline emblazoned on the front of a newspaper held by a passerby.

TRAGIC ACCIDENT AT REICHENBACH FALLS.

SEARCH PARTIES CALLED OFF.

Buying a newspaper off the nearest person willing to part with theirs, she hastily skims the article, which in itself is no cause for alarm – because at this point in time, the safest scenario for her and Holmes is that they be both dead to the world, and it doesn't surprise her that the search parties combing the riverbank in the photograph had never thought to check the caves downstream from the falls, where it would have been logical at least for one injured in the falls to have sought shelter if they had been able to reach the bank, though admittedly they would have probably succumbed to the cold there.

In any case, had they checked the caves, they would have found the remnants of her fire –they would have had a clue that at least she or the detective had survived and known to look further. Instead, in their utter ineptitude, they had presumed them both dead and written as much, with both her and the detective mentioned only in the shadow of their respective family members who had wielded greater power and renown.

It wasn't the text though that had turned her blood to ice, she realizes only after reading it. Instead it was the grainy photograph, the silhouette of two men among the search party who she had instinctually recognized, despite the fact that both were facing away from the photographer, and she couldn't have hoped to point out any one characteristic by which she had known them… and yet there is no doubt that one of them in the photograph is Moran's second-in-command… no doubt that the other is the sniper himself, and now that she knows he is looking, she also knows that he'll never accept her for dead, until he sees a body.

Perhaps the same will be true in his estimation for the detective, perhaps not, but the absolute first place to look for either of them would be among the hospitals and private practices in Switzerland, starting with those closest to Reichenbach - because any survivor of such a plunge would have not emerged from it unscathed - and there is no doubt that Moran will find the detective, just as there is no doubt that he will kill him – because Holmes is in no state to defend himself, and cursing herself for being so wrapped up in her internal conflict that she had forgotten to even consider all the loose ends she had left hanging, she makes her way back to Dr. Kocher's practice, this time running.

Turning up the last alley before the main street where her destination lies, Alexandra stops short, pulling into a recessed doorway as she finally remembers that she may well be too late already and walking into a trap, and her first reflex is to draw one of those well concealed pistols on her person, but remembering that the gunpowder was thoroughly soaked earlier, she stoops, retrieving a knife instead, and concealing it in the broad sleeve of her dress, quickly crosses the street and ducks into the practice.

It is only after finding nothing amiss – no bullet holes in the windows, or murdered staff, and feeling strangely calmed by the steady breathing of the unconscious detective that she first registers how utterly foolhardy it had been for her to chase down the threat of the most skilled marksman she has ever known armed only with a weapon of pitifully short range, but she supposes that such lapses are to be forgiven when one has not slept in days.

This time, though, she doesn't let complacency sink in, because now that she has suddenly been jarred back to a reality she was all too willing to forget, she knows that the only factor that has prevented Moran from finding her thus far – from finding them thus far – is that he has had to check every possible location due in part to the fortuitous biting wind that had obscured her tracks in the early steps of this journey and in part to her endless stream of lies and manipulations, but that is of no permanent protective value, because she knows Moran – Moran the tiger hunter – has the tenacity to keep looking until he finds her.

No loose ends. The former Colonel had learned that much from her father, and learned it well.

He probably isn't even looking for Holmes, probably has written him off as dead already, having known how severely injured the detective was, but that will not stop him from killing Holmes when his search for the younger Moriarty leads him right to the detective who now has no chance of surviving – thanks to her, she thinks bitterly before angrily crushing the fleeting thought – and she cannot allow that to happen.

Glancing back at the fleeting peace of temporary oblivion that is settled firmly upon the detective's features, Alexandra walks out of the room, pushing all the obvious failings of her newly formed plan out of her mind.

After all, fear is a better state than the permanent variety of oblivion, isn't it?

Of course at the other end of the spectrum, there is the detective's brother – who is well protected and would protect his sibling in turn – but her father had agents within the government of England among many other places, and without knowing a way to ensure her communication will reach Mycroft Holmes alone, they will not even survive returning to England.

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	17. Chapter 17

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She returns half an hour later with fresh ammunition loaded inside both pistols, and filling her purse, and tickets to Holland on the evening train, purchased under one of her less-used pseudonyms.

It is only the tickets that she lets the present medical staff see as she haltingly explains to the doctor that when the younger Sigerson had been placed in her care, the Norwegian government agents responsible had shown her photographs of people she needed to ensure no contact with, and even though they hadn't explained exactly what type of threat these men posed, she fears that she may have seen one of them.

Like most people, blissfully oblivious to the world of crime that she and Holmes have been embroiled in at opposite sides, the doctor reassures her that it must be some mistake – that she's safe, of course she is safe – and besides, their patient is not ready for any kind of journey because he needs to be monitored and because with the injuries he has, the motion of a train will be agonizing.

It turns out that hysteria is all too easy to fake when one's nerves are as taxed as hers have been for days now - with the doctor's words echoing in her ears because Holmes had escaped in the cargo container of a train - and terrified supplications are too easy to utter when before her, by her own hand notwithstanding, one so formidable has been rendered so utterly defenseless.

Ultimately, inevitably really, they give in to her manipulations, promising their help and a silence she has confidence they will keep, though even if they do not, there is the added benefit that nothing they can say will endanger her anyway, because her actual destination is to Sicily, via train to Italy and boat thereafter, with tickets purchased under an entirely new name.

Three hours later, two of the orderlies are with her, helping to move Holmes and the bag of medical supplies onto the train bound for Sweden, and she imagines, as they are occluded by the oncoming crowds that it is the last she will see of them.

Neither of them are there to see her hoist the detective once more over her shoulders and slip into the reserved boxcar of the train to Italy which has been delayed by the needed half-hour courtesy of her very own sabotage, and she doubts that anyone present will have noticed the exchange, or the fact that she had so 'charitably' passed the tickets to Holland to a traveling couple out of America, because officers and passengers alike are all drawn to watching the chaos that she has caused unfold as two local rival gangs which she anonymously paid hash out their differences not far from the train station.

When they are finally moving though the vast expanses of desolate countryside, and there is a gap between the visits of the attendants who have come repeatedly to offer assistance to either her or her sleeping mother – a shave, powder, wig, and some absurdly lacy blankets do well to cover both Holmes's injuries and identity – Alexandra finally extracts the handful of varying caliber bullets from the bottom of her purse and throws them out the window into the lake they are passing, muttering sarcastically about having spent too much time with the detective.

Her complaints end with a quiet but vehement curse, because she didn't care if the brawl she had created would have claimed lives, she's a Moriarty, but Holmes would have, especially if unrelated individuals had been caught in the crossfire, and somehow that knowledge had translated into her stealing all the ammunition from the very people she had instigated a rout between.

Holmes, of course, doesn't answer, and her anger evaporates as quickly as it has arisen; the inane escapade had been a distraction at the very least, and besides she doesn't have the time or the energy to be angry, because by keeping the detective sedated for this journey, she by necessity has to stay with him constantly, to make sure he never spends too long in any one position, to stave off dehydration by slipping drops of water between his lips in small enough quantities that he cannot choke on it but often enough to keep him alive, and to watch for signs of a fever starting anew.

It is only when the boxcar is plunged into darkness and she has to feign sleeping as not to attract the attention of the attendants that she realizes her utter inability to give in to Morpheus, because having not slept in several days should have made it impossible for her to remain awake once her eyes were closed but instead - and despite the cold exhaustion she can feel in her limbs – no sleep will come, and it feels as if there is something broken inside her that rattles uncomfortably with each minute shaking of the train.

So instead of trying – instead of closing her eyes again – she sits staring into the darkness, counting out time on her pocket-watch as she holds on to the routine medical care she is giving like a drowning person to a piece of driftwood, because though the consuming darkness of night had long since ceased to hold any fear for her, there is no denying the icy claws of what she can only describe as fear sinking into her being, making her tremble now that no-one can see her shaking in the darkness, and she wonders bitterly how she can possibly be afraid of facing her victim – or if maybe she is loosing her sanity.

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End file.
